Hey, we should all really stop using racist slang to refer to customozation

blashork [she/her]@hexbear.net to Unixporn@lemmy.ml – 132 points –

Meta post I've decided to make. I enjoyed the unixporn subreddit a lot when I used reddit more. I enjoy customizing my linux de as much as the next nerd.

But you definitely shouldn't use racist slang to refer to the process.

To be clear, I didn't know the origin of the term 'ricing' until fairly recently. I was chattimg with my friend and used it to describe my de setup. They informed me that apparently it's from car customization, and is a pejorative against generally asian men who customize their car to look like a racecar.

After learning this I was sad to realize just how engrained it is in linux de customization culture. I personally have stopped using the term, and I would ask everyone here stop as well.

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I think the right way to respond to racist cliches is with hostility

true.

But you’re drawing a false equivalence between westerners trying to self-criticize their use of chauvinistic language, and the imperial governments that enforce that chauvinism in the first place (what the fuck dude)

true, i fucked up with that. my issue with this (the way i see it) is white people do racist shit, and the rest of us have to move to their tune, including however they feel things need to be fixed and to absolve them of their guilt. id much rather have the racist term and the history all in front and center. this is the history of the term, this is how it was used, and this is how we use it. I see it like the word "queer", was a pejorative at a point that's now been reclaimed.

Funny you’re calling anyone a debate pervert

takes one (me) to know one. lol.

I respect that, it's not something I'd thought about before in this context. Genuinely, thank you for giving me something to think about.

For sure. thanks for hearing out my 2cents. Feel free to send over something for me to think about (about my pov etc) :)

I've been a reading What Is Antiracism?: And Why It Means Anticapitalism by Arun Kundnani

Acts of individual racist discrimination and abuse remain common enough. But they are not the primary means through which racial domination is effected. Neoliberalism has given racial capitalism ways to organize itself without the need for the explicit vocabulary or attitudes of white supremacy. Neoliberal racism operates through the hidden hand of property ownership and the iron fist of security agencies. The mute compulsions of market pressures are upheld through the intensified brutality of racially coded bordering, incarceration, policing, and war. The “rigour of the system makes it superfluous to make a daily assertion of superiority,” as Fanon put it.~1~ We fail to grasp this reconfiguration of a whole structure if we understand racism today as solely a pattern of unconscious biases and micro-aggressions. pg.223

Emphasis mine. This book has helped me reframe my understanding of what racism is, and what actions I can take as an individual to meaningfully combat racism in a material way. What I'm coming to understand, in regards to racially charged words, is that the best thing I can do is navigate my life in such a way that I generally avoid those terms, because ultimately when we're conflicted over the issue of language, the true root systems of racism remain unaffected.

true root systems of racism remain unaffected.

gaaaaah. Good point. I hate that youre right about that.